Morning all !! I've been seeing a lot of ads on tv about this Magic Jack
thingy, to get phone acess thru the pc....was wondering if this gadget
is any good, does anyone use it, and if so what are your experiences
with the thing ?! Just wondering about saving a few bucks LOL....
thanks and have a good friday !!
baron

That's a good questions baron. I would also like to know what others think.

I'll probably never get it, because you would only be able to hook up one phone, unless you have more than one computer, and another thing, I think you have to leave your computer on at all the time, or you won't be able to use it. and what happens if your Computer goes South (dies)????

Lorraine

Why not just use yahoo messenger? 2cent per minute, unless they go belly-up :-)

Well my thought on msnger would be I'd then have to buy a microphone, and get
some very good speakers, we both have some hearing issues...but thanks....
baron

Baron, I have not used. I know a couple of people who do, and are very pleased with it. This post they made
is a little old but still correct.

kenneth

MAGIC JACK

Kenneth, thanks for this info...will check this all out...
baron

There's a lot of pros, & cons

Check some of these out...

Magic Jack

and also go down to, and click on (Magic Jack - Hot Coupon World), and don't forget to check page #3

Lorraine

I am an experienced computer tech:

Here is what I went through.


I got the MJ about 1pm in the mail...it took about 3 days from when I ordered it to get it. It says that you just plug it in and you can start making calls. Well, it didn't happen. I spent most of the day with their Chat support with them telling me to run the upgrade ( about 7 times in all) basically beating a dead horse. I knew that it was something with my system but their support is usually scripted and pretty much limited. Whenever I would unplug the MJ my system would crash and reboot. I spent the rest of the day going from one tech to the next as they continued to tell me to run the upgrade. The next morning I took a different approach and googled issues. i finally found my resolution.

This is really not the fault of the MJ but in the computer world...no one ever has the same programs installed and it is difficult to duplicate issues in a lab as there can be an exponential amount of variations.

I found that I have a third party CD/DVD burning software that changed the registry which caused the MJ to malfunction and not load properly.

here is the actual link that led me to the fix:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12546_102-0.ht...6;posts#2561947

[The fault is (apparently) caused by 3rd party CD-burning software installing invalid/faulty "filters" on top of your basic CD drivers. When these go wrong, windows has problems starting the driver successfully.

Fortunately, you can get rid of these filters with a quick registry edit:

1. Run regedit

2. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

3. Delete the "UpperFilters" entry

4. Delete the "LowerFilters" entry

5. Close regedit

6. Reboot your machine ]


I have two desktops, one running XP and the other Vista. I apparently had the 3rd party software on both as both systems had the same problem. However, I had a laptop that it ran just fine on. If I were not a technician of over 12 years, I probably wouldn't have known what to do.

Now that I have it...it works fantastic. Yes you have to have your computer running to receive calls but if you shut your computer down, the MJ voicemail will answer and then send a wav file of the voicemail to your email. It was quite cool. But if you go on vacation and have a laptop or a computer at the location you visit, you can take the MJ with you and get your calls whereever you travel.

Sure there are some issues but overall...it works!!! For those who complain, either don't have the patience to fix it or just like to complain.

Good info kelloggfan. Thanks for that update.

kenneth